Alpha Fireworks Ltd - Jailed

[Meerkat]

Apparently both are going to appeal.  BBC says against sentence and conviction.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/sussex/8584820.stm

[FSO]

If anyone can get a copy of the latest FBU magazine, it is worth a read around this case.

[FSO]

Even better, found a link

http://www.fbu.org.uk/newspress/ffmag/2010/FBU_FF_Mar10_LR.pdf

[CivvyFSO]

Apparently both are going to appeal.  BBC says against sentence and conviction.

Surely you should only appeal one? You either did it, and the sentence is too Harsh, or you didn't do it?

[afterburner]

yes Civvy I must agree that a double-barrelled appeal seems a bit odd. If they get the conviction quashed the sentence falls automatically. If the conviction is upheld after appeal surely the sentence would be subject of a different appeal?

Or is this a convenient legal process to address both issues at once?

[Meerkat]

Or you're going to try to say first that you didn't do it, but if that fails then you don't want to go to prison for having done it...

Not a lawyer but I suspect it's the "convenient legal process" answer?

[Chris Houston]

Interesting 2 sides to this one.  Illigal storage on one side and apparent failure of safety procedures on the other.

Now if you were to assault someone and they had say perhaps a bad heart and they died from it, that would you the attackers fault.  If you drive someone over and they don't get good medical care and die, it would be your fault.  So if you store explosives badly and people don't fight the fire well, you're still guilty.

In my personal opinion it is right that they go to jail.  But not even being a fire fighter, I've seen enough fire work explosion videos to know that you don't want to be anywhere near them, certainly not withing 100 metres, so it really does raise some questions about why everyone was so close.

Anyone else dealt with a fireworks fire?  How close to it were you?

[Wiz]

I agree that the firework company obviously deserved to be prosecuted for the offences in respect of the storage regulations. What is the use of safety regulations, if they are going to be ignored, especially as this case shows the deadly results of what can happen when they are ignored.

I also was also surprised that it seems from the report that warnings given by the offenders to the firemen were ignored. Strangely, the report seems to include the firefighters and Police admitting that the offenders advised them that they should keep well away from the storage container because it was liable to explode in the fire, but also the accusation that the offenders didn't tell them specifically that there was explosive material in the container. I find this contradiction confusing.

The video of an a container of fireworks exploding in a fire, previously added to a reply on the subject of this case astounded me. It seems that even legal amounts of fireworks in a container can explode with catastrophic results. I cannot believe that anyone, let alone a fireman, who has seen this video, would willingly stand within even 1000 metres of any storage container of fireworks involved in a fire. Questions must be asked as to why professionals were killed and injured in this incident in the circumstances as reported.

[Mr. P]

Difficult call for the emergency reponse. The police would rightly be cautious of an 'alleged' offender telling them to keep away - as there may be something to be gained by the 'offender', i.e. getting rid of evidence against themselves.

[Chris Houston]

But even if the shipping container was not there, it seems to be that fire fighters ought to keep well back from all fires with fireworks.  Other videos of fireworks on youtube etc all indicate that large distances are necessary.

[kurnal]

Firefighters are there to protect the public. To do this they have to take some risks and the amount of risk they are expected to take depends on the potential benefits of taking that risk- can life be saved or a huge incident be prevented.

If all goes well your approach will depend on the information available and the nature of the incident. It may be necessary to make a cautious approach to the heart of the incident to search and rescue and gain intelligence. Then withdraw first to an inner cordon from which operations are managed and establish an outer cordon from which the public will be excluded.

With the benefit of hindsight it appears that information gathering, communications and risk assessment were all open to question in this case, but hind sight is a wonderful thing.

Let us hope that firefighters are never prevented from taking a calculated risk to save a life. It would be easy to say for example to the  emergency services "never set foot on the motorway unless it has been closed" but many lives would be lost as a result.

Fireworks, gas cylinders, chemicals- very often you dont know they are there till you are looking at them.

Approach and  gathering of information are key to the next stages of Planning, organisation, control, management  re-assessment and review.
 

[Midland Retty]

Kurnal, I'm afraid to say things are getting to the point operationally where too many "health & safety " constraints are leading to some of the scenarios you mention . (ie motorway to be closed before personnel are committed)

But I guess that's another topic for another day.

As with all cases where someone has died, be they members of the public, or serving personnel, I find its probably better not to speculate about the events that occurred, as this often leads to unhelpful rumour mongering and such like.

It is important however that lessons are learnt from incidents such as this, so that hopefully it can't happen again.

[Chris Houston]

Firefighters are there to protect the public. To do this they have to take some risks and the amount of risk they are expected to take depends on the potential benefits of taking that risk- can life be saved or a huge incident be prevented.

If all goes well your approach will depend on the information available and the nature of the incident. It may be necessary to make a cautious approach to the heart of the incident to search and rescue and gain intelligence. Then withdraw first to an inner cordon from which operations are managed and establish an outer cordon from which the public will be excluded.

With the benefit of hindsight it appears that information gathering, communications and risk assessment were all open to question in this case, but hind sight is a wonderful thing.

Let us hope that firefighters are never prevented from taking a calculated risk to save a life. It would be easy to say for example to the  emergency services "never set foot on the motorway unless it has been closed" but many lives would be lost as a result.

Fireworks, gas cylinders, chemicals- very often you dont know they are there till you are looking at them.

Approach and  gathering of information are key to the next stages of Planning, organisation, control, management  re-assessment and review.
 

Wise words.  I am I agree with them as well as sharing Retty's concearns that things might have already gone too risk adverse.  However it was known that this was a fire involving fireworks early - there can be no doubt of that - and yet it is clear that the fire fighters are very close.

When ever I consider fire risks and need to use an extreme example to illustrate a point, I talk about a timber constructed fire work storage factory.

I'm skill keen to hear if this is normal, or if most fire fighters would expect to have been working from further away.

[Wiz]

M.R. we are not 'speculating' on something before the 'facts' have been considered. We are now discussing it after the incident and the resultant court case and all as reported in the media. This is now surely something open for discussion. The latest discussion was prompted by reports that the offenders were considering/lodging an appeal.




 

[kurnal]

Wiz
I do not know but there could be seperate investigations in progress into the activities of the fire service at this incident.   This will be what MR is getting at.